After struggling against the Carp’s rookie pitcher Nomura over 2 starts, the Swallows finally got to him and gave Roman the offensive support necessary to get the win.

Carp

Swallows

1

Soyogi (SS)

1

Tanaka (2B)

2

Kokubo (2B)

2

Fukuchi (CF)

3

Maru (CF)

3

Milledge (LF)

4

Nick (LF)

4

Balentien (RF)

5

Hirose (RF)

5

Kawabata (SS)

6

Matsuyama (1B)

6

Miyamoto (3B)

7

Dobayashi (3B)

7

Hatakeyama (1B)

8

Shirahama (C)

8

Nakamura (C)

9

Nomura (P)

9

Roman (P)

Fukuchi got the start at center, after Ueda’s collision against the wall in yesterday’s game.

Tanaka started things off for the Swallows with a hit off Nomura. While the next 3 batters all grounded out, it was a refreshing change from being held to 1 hit over 8 innings by Nomura in his last outing.

Roman quietly had a solid game getting the defense to field balls and keep his pitch count low. An overeager Carp line up helped by swinging early in the count, in fact 16 of 31 at bats against Roman tonight ended in 2 pitches or less.

The Swallows got the scoring started in the third. Tanaka patiently fouled off Nomura’s pitches low pitches, and finally took a high outside pitch (9th in the AB) and put on the ground to right field for a hit. Fukuchi flied out to center for the first out, and Milledge skyed a pitch to shallow left field that looked to be going foul. Nick may have resigned himself to a similar conclusion, but instead the ball bounced in fair and by the time the ball came back into the infield, Tanaka was on third and Milledge was standing on second for a wonky double. Balentien followed with a grounder to first, and while Matsuyama looked to throw to home, Tanaka got a good enough jump at third to score and Matsuyama had to settle with the out at first. 1-0 Swallows Kawabata couldn’t get Milledge home from third, but first blood had been drawn.

Two innings later, Milledge managed a more traditional looking double down the left field line with 1 out. With first base open, the Carp decided to pitch around Balentien granting him a 4 pitch walk. Kawabata made the Carp pay by lining a single into left, which allowed Milledge to score from second. 2-0 Swallows Again, the Swallows failed to bust the game open and the scoring stopped at 1 run.

Run Lastings Run!

After being held to 1 hit through 5 innings, the Carp finally showed some life in the sixth. After giving up 2 fly outs to center in only 3 pitches, the Carp scored 1 run with a Nick double and Hirose single in only 4 pitches. 2-1 Swallows But Roman only needed 2 pitches to get Matsuyama to fly out to end the inning.

The Swallows got the run back right away after Nakamura got to second after Dobayashi allowed his league leading 7th error letting the ball go right by him. Roman executed a pretty bunt, forcing Dobayashi to make a good throw to first to put a man on third with 1 out. Tanaka drew a 4 pitch walk to put men on the corners. Fukuchi managed to get a ball deep enough to center to score Nakamura on a sacrifice. 3-1 Swallows

With May 5th being Children’s Day in Japan, the 5th inning fan shout out segment consisted of 4 pint sized fans. The last child asked Balentien to “Homer in his next at bat… please”. Balentien, who’d never let down down his fans, obliged with a solo shot to right center to open the bottom of the seventh. 4-1 Swallows

Roman ended up pitching 8 innings in only 95 pitches, giving up 5 hits and 3 walks (1 intentional), to go with 3 strikeouts. With the save situation in order, Barnette came in and got the Carp to go down 1-2-3 with 2 Ks to preserve the win.

Notes

The win was Roman’s second of the season. Both of Roman’s wins have come at Jingu.

The Swallows’ win, and a 12-1 thrashing of the Dragons by the BayStars means the Swallows are back at the top of the CL standings.

After the logjam that was the Miyamoto milestone game, the crowd for the Saturday nighter was announced at 33,089.

The Swallows will go for the sweep tomorrow night at 18:00. Both teams will be throwing their aces on the table. The Carp will send out Maeda, while the Swallows will go with Tateyama

Kozo Ota is a third-generation Swallows fan that grew up on Montreal Expos baseball. (You can read more about that here.) When he’s not at Jingu, he works as a freelance translator/interpreter to make enough money to go to Jingu. You can find random posts by Kozo on Google+ and Twitter.

FLR

Wow, 33k spectators again. I guess this is normal during Golden Week. Is the Wikipedia capacity of 37k correct? Were these 4k empty seats over along the Carp 3rd base side?

Mike197942

Actually, the carp side was PACKED! I’m impressed, those fans really love their team. Saw a few reserved bleacher seats that were empty seats on our side, and maybe a few behind home plate?
Didn’t really change the course of the game, but gotta say I loved the home run from Coco after the kid asked for one beforehand. That’s why I love baseball!

Highwaythe3rd

As usual at Jingu the empty seats were the supposed “good seats”; S & A – reserve seats.

EtsukoKoiso

On the train back home from Jingu on this night, my son and I offered our seats to a family with a small boy and a crying baby, even though they all (including the baby) wearing Carp uniforms. The mother thanked us, and then noticed our Swallows umbrellas and congratulated us for the win. We did good, didn’t we?